


Spit and Holler

by TheCokeworthSnapes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Families of Choice, Injury Recovery, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Queer Themes, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCokeworthSnapes/pseuds/TheCokeworthSnapes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After winning their divorce, Remus and Tonks can enjoy their relationship the way they prefer. They need not be understood, as long as they're respected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spit and Holler

It is a universal disservice that fate is not proceeded by a courtesy call. Good etiquette would dictate that before a sudden lighting onto a person’s life, the aspects of fate—whether they are a chance encounter or, in this case, a near death experience—should send ahead a calling card to prepare the host for their arrival. 

If fate came after a nicely dressed servant, offering an embossed announcement of impressive stock from a silver tray dressed with roses, its presence might be preferred. The indignities said presence promises could be suffered with better grace. 

Because no individual, no matter how direct or forbidding or private, is allowed to refuse fateful happenings. They have no choice in that matter: partially because they have no forewarning. But the way in which fate just shows up, assuming rightfully that it will be taken in if not welcomed, is a symptom of the universe being a place of irrepressible and oblivious evil. 

-

Severus rarely visited his mother in her rent-controlled one bedroom. Despite the lease being in his name, he only paid for the place to keep Eileen out of his own life. 

She was a surly, bitter woman by habit, and raised him to be an angry and secretive man. They mutually preferred to see less of each other on the day to day. She babysat his drunk of a father in Cokeworth, and Severus took to the city for university. 

Having now survived her husband of forty years by months, it was suddenly her wish to see her only child. She left her tired, half-empty home in the country and migrated south. Now her life was full of new things to complain about—which suited her immensely—and Severus, a tenured professor with three post-graduate degrees, was forced to share his city and time with the most hermetic old woman in London.

But she was his only family, so he made the trip. A train to a bus to a ten-minute walk, where he traded insults and tea, and defended his disdain for company. Then he donned his coat, took a plastic bag of Tupperware under his arm, and left. 

A walk, to a bus, to a train that, on this dreary afternoon, stopped running due to construction. So he grumbled, readjusted his bag, and waded through the crowd of displaced commuters to return the way he had come. Hustling to beat the foot traffic, he stalked through the hissing spray of rain to wait, foot-tapping, at the bus stop. 

When the lumbering beast came whining to a halt, he fed it his fare and shuffled to the very back. Severus, straight-backed and shushing his wet plastic, glanced out the window and tensed. Up the street, at least three dozen strangers charged toward his bus. He ran a frantic look over the space of the bus, which was not full but on its way to, and knew it would be packed in seconds. 

However, the city’s clock remained a dispassionate savior. Severus sighed through his nose as the bus doors squeaked shut on the rambling crowd, and the vehicle rumbled back into traffic. 

“Serves you right,” he thought spitefully to the despairing people in the crowd. Their faces disappeared into the crawling gray of the city. 

In the bus, the last passenger to climb on dropped his sweater hood, showing dirty blonde hair under a dark beanie, and buried his hands in jeans pockets. He slouched toward the first open seat, and Severus looked away. Then the professor heard a neat “snck!” and horrified gasps. Raising an eyebrow, he turned back, and found the young man holding the driver at knifepoint. 

“You’re alright, bruv, but don’t start nuthin’,” the boy told the hefty man with a blade naming his kidney. “Keep goin’ till I say, get it?”

Severus leaned back and crossed his arms, thinking this just his luck. 

“Okay, all of you, empty your pockets,” the hijacker addressed the rest of them. He frowned, pissed, and considered what he had on him. 

Severus patted his person, having just his wallet, his key ring, and his phone. He pulled out his wallet and discreetly slid his cards and ID into his sleeve. He dug out an old check and crumpled it in his fist. Then he folded the remaining few loose pounds, receipts, and ticket stubs back into the wallet, and left it on his leg for the collection. 

The cell phone he put back in his coat. It might have been worth nothing compared to the newer model smart phones that talk when you look at them, but he’d be damned if he spent a cent on a new one. The rude boy running the bus could make do with what he got. 

As the thief progressed down the center aisle, Severus couldn’t help evaluating his preparedness. Despite being young, he made quick work of the rows, having neighbors relieve each other of their possessions and throw the whole pot into his backpack. At one point, Severus caught a glimpse of his shaking hands and strained pitch, however, which hardly matched the clearly careful planning. 

Drugs, he wondered. Obviously not, but the boy had something to him. Severus couldn’t decide whether or not it was his first time. 

Whispering swelled up beside him. Severus looked and widened his eyes, more than a little impressed. A second person, this one a girl with bright red hair and a medical mask, was directing valuables into her bag. This half of the bus being shorter and elevated, she patiently ran through the first five rows of passengers in short order. Soon she was approaching him, in the cluster of handicapped seats. 

“Throw it in,” she murmured at him, pointing at his wallet with her own, short switchblade. Severus glared at her closeness, seeing freckles over the white edge of the mask. She couldn’t be more than twenty. 

Something in his face unnerved her, he figured. It might have been the dark circles under his eyes, his hooked nose, or the fact that he didn’t blink. Like a child staring down a chained dog, she shouted for her partner. Severus lifted his chin and scowled. 

His section went quiet as the first robber powered through to the girl. He noticed that both their knives were dull and nicked, like ones used to taking on locks and gouging radios from helpless dashboards. Neither blade looked like it’d ever met flesh. The robbers’ eyes were by far sharper than their weapons, and not by much. 

“Hand it over,” said the boy. Severus took him in—all disheveled and scrawny looking, not an armful soaking wet—and scoffed. He dragged his arms apart, lifted his wallet, and made a show of throwing it into the backpack. It landed on all the other wallets with a soft ‘pat.’

“The fuck you think you lookin’ at like that,” growled the girl. Her knife came up to his eye, then floated down to his chest. The child clearly couldn’t make up her mind, and Severus was no longer impressed with her manner. 

He had hoped they were the type to take their lot and leave. He hated lingering more than he did being gawked at. He particularly hated when others took him for a coward. 

He stared on. Insults flitted through his brain, weighing against his time and the robbers’ intents. One peeked at the other, because all he seemed to want was the money; the other, deciding her point of entry just didn’t like the look of him. They were giving him their full attention, which was mostly their mistake. 

Severus re-crossed his arms and heard the bus hold its breath. 

“Pathetic,” he said, hardly more than thinking it. 

As the knife extended from the girl’s hand into his stomach, he wondered if perhaps he should have stayed quiet. Then a second jab scraped under his lung and he realized, with some seriousness, the error of his ways. He very much did not want to breathe his last on public transportation. 

The stabbing, he was surprised to see, felt a bit like being hit. Piercing pain did not extend past the skin. As adrenaline flooded his system and noise became screaming and his own thudding heart, Severus hoped someone would think to call an ambulance after the robbers left. 

He looked up, horribly annoyed, and pressed both hands into his sides. His plastic bag crackled. 

The boy’s hat had fallen askew while he struggled to hold back his little girlfriend. Underneath, the blond wig slipped away from a mop of filthy black hair. That head dipped and wide, green eyes raked over Severus’ face. The mouth beneath them apologized profusely. 

Severus shook and slumped onto the body next to him. Burning, he spat at the couple as someone dragged them from the bus. Uniform identified one man as the driver, with a phone stretched from a panel to his ear. 

“Call…,” muffled speaking. Someone moved him and propped him back against his seat. “Have to hurry! Wait, stay a—ke.”

“Un-fuckin’-believable,” he answered. 

Voices spoke to him from every direction, at which point Severus realized that his eyes had closed and he opened them. The bus had stopped and he wanted to see those two bastards arrested. He saw, through a haze, that people were brought to the ground and kneeled on. He saw the red hair and, satisfied, let himself lose consciousness. 

-

Remus spent that morning in bed with his ex-wife. His son had gone to visit his grandmother for the weekend, as per their custody arrangement, so that the newly unwed could celebrate their divorce. Finally, after over a year of convincing family court that their relationship was fine, but marriage was an issue, they could enjoy coupling as it should be: free.

He shuddered and rolled onto his side, with an arm thrown over her stomach. Dora, sweaty and flushed, panted through a smile and kissed his shoulder. It was a moment before either of them caught their breath. But, grinning, they said that first word in unison. 

“Brilliant!”

Laughing, Remus pulled her through the bunching sheets to lay her along his side. Her short hair tickled his neck as he tucked her into him. 

“S’too hot for this,” she groaned into his chest. He grinned at her feeble pushes and dropped another kiss on her ear. The sound of her giggling made him warm all over, because he had her how he wanted her, and so he wrapped a hairy leg over her narrow hips and became a vice. 

“Remus! You’re sweating in my eye, love,” she complained, wriggling and brushing her hand over his thigh. “God, you stink like sex.”

He pulled back to see her grinning just as widely as he was. Kisses and more kisses, skin encountering skin, because this had been their third day as new and together, and he was glad to not be sick of her. Three days to adjust to their situation, and her face was still heart-shaped, her nails still bitten to the quick, her mousy roots still showed through her nest of faded pinks and violets, and she was all the way still his. 

The law was gone from between them. There was just warm air and the comforter.

“I love you,” he said. 

And Dora bloomed and burrowed into his spaces: his armpits, the bowl of chest, the gap between his thighs, and the grooves in his back. Slotted together like that, they dozed lightly, breathing against each other, until the phone rang.

“Leave it,” she mumbled with her nose buried in his collarbone. 

Of course, he couldn’t. It could be work calling about his requested time off. He needed to assure a week alone with his family in the wake of the judge’s decision. Getting it had been so long spent pulling teeth and explaining themselves to bits. He and his needed to begin carving out their new normal.

“I’ll be right back,” he soothed, petting her backside. Then he unwound himself, feeling clingy and young, and stumbled toward the house phone discarded in the laundry hamper. 

“Shit, it’s freezing,” swore Dora in the background as he picked up the call. He chuckled and rasped, “Hello?” 

Remus cleared his throat and tried again. He reckoned ruefully that his job just received an earful of his weekend. Except that, as he listened, he realized it wasn’t work. The officer on the phone had to repeat himself before his message registered. Remus nodded his understanding and repeated it solemnly and disconnecting the call. 

He dropped the phone and started throwing on clothes. 

“Who was—whoa, what’s happened?” 

He explained hastily but was asked to slow down. Either way, from his tone alone, Dora had gotten out of bed and started pulling on her underwear. Throwing a t-shirt over her naked breasts, she prompted him for details as they raced downstairs to the front door. 

“What is it with Harry? He was mugged?” She asked this disbelievingly as she dug through the catch-all for the car keys. They jingled in her palm and clattered against the door as she threw it open. Remus ran down the front stairs of their duplex behind he. Jointly, they turned to where he remembered parking. 

“No, no he,” he swallowed and tried again. “Harry and Ginny got caught mugging someone or, or a bus of someones. The police have them. But why the hell—”

“Do they need bail,” Dora asked.

They paused, looking at each other over the roof of their economy car. Neither of them had money to spare, after the legal fees, Remus’ old hospital bills, Dora’s tuition payments, and of course, with Teddy’s daycare. They made okay money, but not enough to drop hundreds in one go. Forget thousands.

Remus watched her, though, grateful that she asked. He could already see her brain working as she thought on their costs due. She was thinking on where they would get the money from, same as he. He promised himself to thank her for this later.

“I don’t know, they—someone was hurt,” he admitted. Dora jolted, slamming the keys against the car. 

“Not Harry!?”

“No, uh, a man on the bus, one of people they—robbed. They think Ginny stabbed someone. Dora, we have to get down there.”

She nodded that this was a given and hopped into the driver’s seat. Remus stood blinking and staring blankly at the spot she had been at. People across the street glanced their way, but walked on. They may have been shouting. 

“Remus, are you coming? Do you want me to come back for you so you have a bit to—.”

She was good in emergencies, he thought. She always had been better at thinking on her feet than he was, when it was personal. He wondered if this was part of her once training to be a police officer herself. 

“No, I’m coming,” he replied, climbing into the car and pulling out his cell phone. 

“Which precinct is it?” she asked, turning the engine. She started the wipers before backing out of the spot. 

He looked up from his phone screen that read, “CALLING ‘Andie.’” He told her what she needed to know and they pulled off into the street. 

Remus began counting every cent he had on him. He sorted the bills and coins in the cup holder and held them in his hand while he searched for his wallet. He swore, thinking he left it, when Dora pulled it from her jacket pocket. 

“Right here,” she proffered. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”

He sighed shakily and hummed. Outside, the street turned toward where the residential buildings met the commercial district. Stores and bus stops rolled past and he grimaced. 

“Mine was the only number he knew by heart,” he mumbled. Dora made a noise and touched his hand, still curved in the cup holder.

“We’ll figure it out, okay, I promise. It has to be a mistake. They would never,” she consoled. It helped that she said this almost factually, because if anything, she believed this. Remus, fearing the worst, drew from her confidence.

His ex-wife drove with one hand on the wheel and the other cupped around his fist of coins. She repeated her assurances, with her eyes glued to the road to deliver them to Harry. Her hair stuck out in odd angles and colors and her lip was stern, her clothes her wrinkled and partly his; and she was as tiny as ever, needing to sit on a pillow to see over the dash. 

“I really love you,” he whispered. She peeked at him, smiled tightly, and lifted his hand to peck the back of it. She whipped one-handed into the police parking lot without letting go. 

“We’ll be fine,” she promised. “I love you, too, baby.”


End file.
